Kenexa World Conference at Connect 2014 #IBMConnect

You won't want to miss the Kenexa World Conference at Connect 2014

No matter what you do in life, it should energize you. It should fulfill you, engage you and give you purpose each day. Your work should inspire you and fill you with a sense of pride. That’s why the theme of this year’s conference is Energizing Life’s Work, and is all about providing you insight, tools and thought leadership to connect what you do to your life’s outcomes.

Connect 2014 offers workstreams specific to HR, IT and Marketing/Customer Service that provide valuable insight and thought leadership for each group. Because it’s no longer just about talent, technology or commerce, it’s about connecting all three together to Energize Life’s Work. The HR workstream at the conference—the same great Kenexa World Conference you know and love—is focused on creating a Smarter Workforce through the lens of HR.

January 27 – 28, 2014
Orlando, Florida

Learn more and you can register here: http://www.kenexa.com/events/connect2014

Be sure to mention "Paul Kim" as your Kenexa Representative when you go through the registration process and it asks: “How did you hear about IBM Connect/Kenexa World Conference?”

Featured Physician Executive: Martin S. Kohn, MD, MS, FACEP, CPE

This week, our featured physician executive is Martin S. Kohn, MD, MS, FACEP, CPE. He is IBM's Chief Medical Scientist. We both share the fact that we have undergraduate degrees from MIT. He was course 6 (electrical engineering/computer science) and I was course 2 (mechanical engineering).

Dr. Martin Kohn, Chief Medical Scientist, IBM Research
Martin Kohn, MD, is Chief Medical Scientist, IBM Research where he is leading efforts to apply IBM’s Watson super computer and its underlying Deep Question Answering technology to advanced analytics in the healthcare industry.

His work focuses on combining IBM’s Deep QA, Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning capabilities for the diagnosis and treatment of patients.

IBM will be hiring physicians and other clinicians

IBM recently announced a "$100 million health care initiative" that includes the hiring of physicians, nurses, and other clinicians. Here's a snippet from their July 15 press release:

ARMONK, N.Y., - 15 Jul 2010: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced plans to enlist some of the company’s leading scientists and technologists to help medical practitioners and insurance companies provide high-quality, evidence-based care to patients. As part of this initiative, IBM is collaborating with clinicians in medical institutions and hiring medical doctors to work alongside its researchers to develop new technologies, scientific advancements, and business processes for healthcare and insurance providers.

Later, IBM goes on to say this:

As part of this initiative, IBM expects to hire several physicians, clinicians, nurses, engineers, economists and social scientists.

I'm not entirely sure what they mean by "several," but let's hope that it's more than just a handful. After all, there are many physicians out there who are eager to get involved in health IT initiatives in both the public and the private sectors.  It's no surprise that major technology companies like IBM will be hiring physicians. After all, the government is spending billions of dollars on health IT and we will see many other health IT opportunities open up for physicians and other health care professionals.

You can read the IBM press release here.

Complimentary webinar regarding the future of the medical device industry

Where is the medical device industry heading? Should you plan to pursue a career in this industry?

• What are the implications of the Healthcare debate for the Medical Device community?
• What emerging mandates, trends or innovations in consumer Health and Wellness will medical device and CE firms need to address?
• Where is your organization making its strategic investments; product and services innovation; marketing compliance, agility and productivity; global growth?
• How will your products and services be more instrumented, intelligent and interconnected into the healthcare ecosytem?
• How will your organization achieve greater speed and agility to capture first mover advantage?
• What are the keys to successfully achieve your business objectives from these investments?

There's a free webinar coming up that will hopefully address some of these issues. This upcoming webinar is sponsored by IBM and offered through the Center for Business Intelligence (CBI). To learn more and to register for this complimentary event, click here.

Learn about health systems

How well do you understand health systems? We are in the midst of significant changes in the economy, government, and in the healthcare system. Well, if you're interested in learning more about health systems, you may want to listen to these free podcasts produced in partnership with IBM, Healthcare IT News, and Healthcare Finance News. It's called the "Smarter Healthcare Series" and you can listen to these podcasts directly from your computer. Or, if you prefer, you can download the MP3 file and listen to it on your iPod or other MP3 player.

These series will cover the following topics:

• Growing expectations for value from increasingly costly health systems.
• Broad global awareness of quality and patient safety challenges.
• Increasing need for citizens to make better health and wellness choices.
• Emerging approaches to promoting health and delivering care such as e-health and medical tourism.
• Expanding resource challenges.
• Increasing cost sharing among public and private health insurers and individuals.
• Worldwide healthcare reform acceleration fueled by economic stimulus dollars.

Want to learn more? Then visit this link to listen to Episode 1. Episodes 2 and 3 are coming later. If you're interested in pursuing a career in health IT, then these types of educational podcasts can be very helpful. I also suggest that you keep up with all the recent news that's surrounding the changing world of health IT.

Google and IBM Joining Forces

Looks like Google is working with IBM to add health data from personal monitoring devices like glucose meters and blood pressure monitors. After all, if all this electronic data is being captured, why not integrate it with your PHR? Weight scales, heart rate monitors, pacemakers, defibrillators, pulse oximeters, peak flow meters, etc.

Soon, all these home devices will be integrated via wireless networks. Whether it's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or some other technology, it will all integrate together. The importance of future home network security can't be underscored. After all, people will want to protect their health data.

So will Google Health consume the marketplace? Or will Microsoft Health Vault be the industry leader? Will they all get integrated somehow?